Council approves budget for 2010-11 fiscal year

By Gary Alan Ruse….The Palmetto Bay Village Council unanimously approved the budget for the coming year during its Sept. 27 budget hearing.

In adopting the proposed budget, which went into effect on Oct. 1 and is expected to become a final document soon, village officials decided to keep the tax rate unchanged, set at 2.447 mills. A mill is equivalent to $1 for every $1,000 in assessed property value, which means that the village will receive $6,078,054 in advalorem taxes. That’s $130,544 less than in the prior year.

Last year, out of a homeowner’s total property taxes, about 13 percent went to cover village operating costs while the rest went to Miami-Dade County government, the Miami-Dade School Board, South Florida Water Management District and the Children’s Trust, among others.

In his presentation before the council vote, village manager Ron E. Williams stated that the proposed budget would allow times of the Village Policing Unit; enhance quality of life by helping provide a safe, clean and attractive environment for residents; continue quality legal representation; enhance government accessibility through communication technologies; improve and maintain infrastructure through public works projects, and properly maintain village parks and other facilities.

“I am proud that we have kept government small and stayed with our mission of doing more with less,” Mayor Eugene P. Flinn said in a posted message to residents after the vote. “This is a ‘clean and lean’ budget.”

According to the budget data, although property taxes and a few other revenue sources are lower than last year, other revenue sources such as utility taxes, licenses and permits, intergovernmental revenue and other funding helped boost available funding higher than last year.